Poetry

This lament has been sent in by David Layne whose father was Pilot Officer W.H.Layne DFC. It is taken from his Prisoner of War log. Before reading it, just try to imagine the loneliness of a POW - barbed wire all round the camp, no proper facilities, not knowing how long you may be there, no female company. same old clothes day after day, perishing cold in the Winter and all you can do is think of home and wait patiently for the Red Cross to bring in your mail. Guards walking round you each day armed to the teeth...

The Prisoners Lament.

Bloody times is bloody hard
Bloody wire and bloody guard
Bloody dogs in bloody yard
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody tea is bloody vile
Bloody coffee makes you smile
Bloody cocoa made in style
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody ice rinks bloody mud
Bloody skates no bloody good
Sat where once I bloody stood
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody salmons bloody queer
Looks at you with bloody leer
Is it good? No bloody fear
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody bridge all bloody day
Learning how to bloody play
Bloody Blackwell's bloody way
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Now and then tho' bloody stale
Censor hands out bloody mail
Better draw the bloody veil
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody girl friend drops me flat
Like a dog on bloody mat
Gets a Yank like bloody that
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Bloody sawdust in the bread
Must have come from bloody bed
Better all be bloody dead
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Don't it get you bloody goat
Was it Shaw who bloody wrote
Where the hell's that bloody goat
Bloody Bloody Bloody

Now I've reached the bloody end
Nearly round the bloody bend
That's the general bloody trend
Bloody Bloody Bloody

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Our Heroes
by Fl/Lt. Jack Skingley DFC

Yonder star alive with merry light
Appears from Earth to be inanimate,
Yet think you not that in that distant sphere,
Live people much the same as here.

Do they know pain as we who suffer now,
Are their aims small as ours, which show
No wish to rise to greater heights
As Time strides on and the Recorder writes.

Look there!
The sun has thrust his rays,
To cap rock's majesty in growing blaze
While down below to mortal life it brings
A stealing glow - and things,
Which in the shadow of the eve
Gained magnitude, now die to leave
The thought that yester took but little joy from Life
When man can face the growing strife
Now prevalent in this troubled world
By honouring a Flag unfurl'd.

Those soldiers who paraded in the Past
Fought war and left Death's aftermath,
Their ghosts now stand with Youth to guide their feet,
To make it easier when the drummers beat
And Last Post sends its poignant prayer
Oh God, receive these Heroes in Thy Care

Oh God, I pray that it may be
That when our nation's history
Stands recorded in Truth's clear lighr
No blot appears to mar the sight
Of noble sacrifice by those who tried,
With Hope abnd Loyality allied,
To stop a Monster's greed for power
And put an end to War for e∂er

Their loyality unites in tempered band
True friendship proffered with unstinting hand.
If theirs to die the clasp is strong
The greater sacrifice, the better bond.

In vision clear as to their destiny
These men will fight for Right unceasingly,
So charge your cups
And stand in prideful pose
To drink a toast to Victory and to Those
Who counted not the price for Conquest paid
Unfaltered in their purpose firmly made,
To rid the World of horror and of vice,
They gave their lives, what Greater Sacrifice!

I give you 'Our Heroes'

(Shortly after composing this Poem Fl/Lt Jack Skingley was killed on operations).

The Young Dead Soldiers
by Archibald MacLeish

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses.
(Who has not heard them?)....They say,
We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say,
We have done what we could
But until it is finished it is not done.
They say,
We have given our lives
But until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say,
Our deaths are not ours,
They are yours,
They will mean what you make them.
They say,
Whether our lives, and our deaths were for peace and a new hope
Or for nothing
We cannot say.
It is you who must say this.
They say,
We leave you our deaths,
Give them their meaning.

Unforgettable
"Missing in action - presumed dead"
was the wartime message families dread.
Though far away, we seemed to feel
your pain, from burst of jagged steel.
The reason's clear, as time goes by,
for us to live - you had to die.
You lost your life and we lost you
what more could one be asked to do.
To those on board a sunken ship
to those who flew their final trip
to those trapped in a burning tank
we need to remember - and to thank

_______________________________________________________________

THE IMMORTAL TEN THOUSAND

by Peter Gould

Time was in the early nineteen forties
When half the world was once again at war,
Brave young men flew out on nightly sorties
To hostile lands beyond their native shore.

These were the men the new historian slanders
Who gave their lives to save the land we love,
Not down in the killing fields of Flanders
But in the black, forbidding skies above.

Ten thousand was, at most, their front line strength.
Like ‘The Immortal Ten Thousand’ of yore
New men replaced the fallen ‘till at length
A hundred thousand fell throughout the war.

As they droned their way through the starry night,
Searchlights, the sparkle of exploding shells
And the Night Fighter, that most dreaded sight,
Would, oft-times alternate with quiet spells.

Then, in a thrice, the darkness was aflame,
A patch of glittering silver on the ground.
A badge of death and ‘Target’ was its name,
With skill and stealth in darkness it was found.

Soon that patch with yellow flames erupted
As every ’plane let go its lethal load
That was how each crew had been instructed
And nothing, then, their purpose would erode.

And those below, there’s none for them would weep
Or ever think about those ghastly scenes
For those were days when human life was cheap,
The end would always justify the means.

Then, as they turned and set a course for base,
They saw, around them, little floating fires.
Deep in their hearts they knew, in every case,
That what they saw were comrades’ funeral pyres.

As ever in this war-torn world of strife,
The all too familiar tragic story,
They received, in payment for a short life,
Their reward, eternal youth and glory.

The Fields of Cambridgeshire - A Folk Song by John Rees

I tell a tale of the year of '43

When young men flew to keep our island free

With engines at full roar

And the scream of speeding tyre

They left from the fields of Cambridgeshire

From Bourn Airfield at the dark end of a day

In mid-December a squadron made its way...

Standing down below

The ground crews said a prayer

For fog and cloud began to fill the air

High in the sky men had one thing on their mind

The road to Berlin was what they had to find

"Strike the enemy

At his heart where he is strong

And perhaps this dreadful war to us will belong!"

Beware the Lowlands long occupied by force

Though close friends fall, stay unflinching on your course

How lonely is the sky

When you're caught in cold searchlight

And you know that shards of steel could blow your body to the night

When all was done and the perils were all past

Return to England - the white cliffs here at last

"We're home, my boys!

We're home! We're feeling grand!

All we have to do now is just get down and land!"

But Bourn Airfield was nowhere to be seen

A midnight fog - the worst there's ever been-

The planes flew round and round

Searched for signals from a mast

With fuel at zero they had to get down pretty fast

Who knows the fear? Who can guess the cold despair

Of men entombed in a tin-box in the air?

God knows how

Yes, some did make it down

But others met Their maker on the ground

So when at night you hear an aeroplane

Think of those boys who will not return again

Think of someone's son

Who died in fog and fire

And left his blood in the fields of Cambridgeshire

Mmmmmm and left his blood in the fields of Cambridgeshire

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